Poker Face

Poker Face is a true or false type game that can be played with a pack of playing cards (or slips of paper). You can use it to review specific tenses and for question asking practice.

Deal each player three to five cards. The first player lays one of their cards face down and makes a statement about their daily routine / the weekend / life experiences etc., using whichever tense is being practised.

For example, if you are practising the past simple to talk about the weekend, a student might lay a card and state, “I ate in a sushi restaurant last night”. If the statement is not true they would lay a red card, if it’s true a black card.

The other students now ask the player up to three questions (either go round the class or the teacher chooses who should ask) to try and deduce if the statement is true or false.

If one of the players thinks the statement is false then they can challenge it. After a challenge, the player turns over their card to show its colour. If the challenger has correctly deduced a lie then the in-play student must pick up all the cards on the table. If the challenger is wrong and the statement was true then they themselves must pick up the cards on the table.

If there are no challenges then the card stays face down on the table and the game continues with the next player laying his or her card on top of the last student’s.

The winner is the first player to get rid of all their cards.

If you don’t have playing cards, you can use slips of paper with True or False written on one side.